Poisoned rats and mice are spreading toxic chemicals into the ecosystem despite widespread pressure from federal regulators, wildlife officials and environmentalists to remove the most harmful rodenticides from store shelves.

A coalition of environmental and public health groups urged state regulators this month to reject 2013 registration renewals for the dangerous pesticides known as brodifacoum, bromadiolone, difethialone and difenacoum.

The lethal compounds, which are known as second-generation anticoagulants, interfere with blood clotting, resulting in uncontrollable bleeding and a slow, agonizing death, according to the demand letter signed by the Center for Biological Diversity, Californians for Pesticide Reform, Earthjustice and the American Bird Conservancy.

When we all work together, we can make positive changes to our environment. I wasn’t going to post anything until state regulators rejected the 2013 poison renewals. But heck, it’s in the paper, so I thought I would let you know what’s going on in California. Like many others, I’ve worked on this and hope the state regulators will put an end to these poisons.

A second generation of ultra-potent rodenticides creates a first-class crisis for people, pets, and wildlife.By Ted WilliamsPublished: January-February 2013

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Both first- and second-generation rodenticides prevent blood from clotting by inhibiting vitamin K, though the second-generation products build to higher concentrations in rodents and are therefore more lethal to anything that eats them.

...Because they are weapons of mass destruction, second-generation rodenticides are the preferred tool wildlife managers use to restore native ecosystems to rat-infested islands. But the EPA has declared them too dangerous for public use and ordered them off the general market. They’re still widely available, however, because stores have huge stocks and because a recent court decision has allowed three of the largest manufacturers to defy the order

....In New York rodenticides were found in 49 percent of 12 species of necropsied raptors. For great horned owls the figure was 81 percent. <snip>But at least in California and New York, nontarget rodenticide poisoning is a public issue. New York City is much enamored of a 22-year-old red-tailed hawk named Pale Male (“How the Nest Was Won”). In February 2012 Pale Male’s mate, Lima, was found dead shortly before she would have laid eggs. The inside of her mouth was pale, as were her heart, lungs, liver, spleen, kidneys, and brain. The necropsy turned up fatal doses of three rodenticides, including brodifacoum, in her liver. Pale Male then took another mate, his sixth—Zena. In 2012 the pair fledged three chicks, one of which is thought to have been killed by rodenticides and two of which were gravely sickened by rodenticides but treated with vitamin K and released. The city, of course, has lost many less famous birds.

New York City Audubon entreats the public never to use the two second-generation rodenticides most toxic to birds (brodifacoum and difethialone) and not to use others except as a last resort and never during nesting season, when adults can feed poisoned rodents to their young and each other. But some bird lovers are scolding the organization for not demanding a complete ban. Director Glenn Phillips offers this defense: “Our city has a huge rat problem. We can’t ban all use of rodenticides; it’s never going to happen. If we were to advocate that, we couldn’t get the support of a single city agency. If you want to tilt at windmills, you can try. If you want to actually make things better for birds, you have to do what you can to reduce rodenticides, even if you can’t eliminate them.”

For years, wildlife and conservation groups have raised alarms that a class of poisons used to kill rats in New York has been indiscriminately killing wildlife in places like Central Park.

Now, relying on fresh evidence from post-mortem examinations conducted by the State Department of Environmental Conservation, six such groups are pressing for a statewide ban on those types of poisons. They say that too many other animals — birds and foxes, as well as dogs and cats — have died after eating rats that had eaten the poison.

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He said their analysis showed that between 1989 and 2013, the pesticides caused or contributed to the deaths of a long list of birds and animals, including at least 50 red-tailed hawks, 47 squirrels, 36 great horned owls, 19 crows, 12 screech owls, 7 Cooper’s hawks, 7 deer, 6 foxes, 3 golden eagles and 2 coyotes. He cautioned that the numbers probably understated the problem, because they counted only animals that were found and tested.

I still say intentional poisoning is the most hideous invention of mankind. Its effects are so far-reaching. It doesn't go away, it just keeps reaching out to poison far more than one intends. Poison the 'weeds' and who do you poison? Poison the ants, then where does it go? Poison the rodents and who else will you kill? Poison your lawn and where will the rain take it?

At what cost does one need to have "a nice lawn"? I see little pesticide application signs all over this lovely town where I live. In the tree above, the insectivores are still singing ... for how long will they sing? What of the robin with her worm, taken from the toxic 'nice' lawn? The owl in the night watches a slow-moving rat ...

Today there are 2650 members of Our Nature Zone. I wish that every one, plus the many guests who visit these pages, would do one small (or giant!) thing to reduce the toxins in our environment, because that too ripples out.